The Most Diverse Nation is the World
When I lived in Japan and talked with my friends about Americans, I had a strong impression that my friends think the average American is white. Of course they realize that there are many other ethnic groups in the U.S. but they do not realize the true extent of racial diversity in America. In their minds, an average American has white skin, a tall nose, long legs, wide eyes, and a muscular body. So I wondered what could have led them to this image of the average American. Then I realized that the description sounds a lot like some cartoon hero. Maybe the American heroes in television and movies have had a strong impact on creating images of the average American for people in foreign countries.
There seems to be a strong sentiment among people of different races that putting characters with a wide range of ethnic diversity in T.V. shows, cartoons, or movies just to be politically correct is meaningless. There seems currently to be a strong resentment against being politically correct, even among minorities. While I agree that putting characters of different races into T.V. shows or movies may sometimes be unnatural, I don't at all agree that it is meaningless.
Think of all the American movie, cartoon or television heroes that you know. You would probably think of Superman, Batman, Indiana Jones, James Bond, G.I.Joe, Rocky, Rambo, X-men, Luke Skywalker, Shaft or Zorro. How many non-white heroes did you come up with? Probably fewer than the number you got for white heroes. This may seem natural considering that the majority of people in the U.S. are white, but there are clearly a larger proportion of white heroic characters in television and movies than in the real American population. In the 1990 census, there were 248,709,873 whites (80.2%) 29,986,060 blacks (12.1%) 22,354,059 Hispanics (9.0%) and 7,273,662 Asian/Pacific Islanders. (2.9%) This means that for every 6.6 white people there is a black person. Comparing this proportion of white to black American heroes in television or movies, there seems to be a large discrepancy between the world of reality and the world of imagination. There are many more white heroes than the simple demographic proportion suggests. Then it becomes my suspicion that white people have much more influence on creating these heroes than people of any other race.
In our world today, how would one describe an American? Throughout the history of the United States, the image of an American is often portrayed as someone with fair skin, and who is of European descent. In reality, this idea is rather false, for America is greatly shaped by different racial groups from all continents—including Asia and Africa. In Ronald Takaki 's book, "A Different Mirror", he talks about how people in America are viewed through the "Master Narrative of American History", the idea that a person is an American, or not, depending on whether he or she satisfies the requirements to be considered as white (4). Takaki argues the Master Narrative left out certain groups including Asian Americans, African-Americans and Native Americans
But Wal-Mart’s care for us goes beyond that simple relationship. As many of us have seen if we have been to a Wal-Mart, they hire people who normally would not be able to get a job. The company knows that by broadcasting itself as positive and helpful in nature it can increase its revenue and in turn increase the amount of assistance it provides to us the consumer. “In 2004 Wal-Mart donated over $170 million. More than 90 percent of these donations went to charities in the communities served by Wal-Mart stores.’ Even more heartfelt than this, Wal-Mart was the leader in goods based relief efforts for victims of hurricane Katrina. “Walmart’s response to the hurricane was lauded even by its critics: it donated more than $20 million worth of merchandise, including food for 100,000 meals, and it promised jobs for all of its displaced workers.” And the first supply truck to arrive at the superdome was a Wal-Mart truck.
Media such as movies, video games and television, in general, are all created to support some form of social context. This helps with generating popularity because people are able to relate to the form of media. In Greg Smith’s book What Media Classes Really Want to Discuss, he describes 6 different representational strategies that justifies people’s way of thinking. The trope that I will be amplifying is the white savior tactic. In addition, I will connect this strategy to the movie The Blind Side. There are clear examples throughout the film where racism and low-income cultures exist in which the white family is there to help. The Tuohy family from the movie “The Blind Side” serves as the white savior for the progression of Michael
The New Deal was a set of acts that effectively gave Americans a new sense of hope after the Great Depression. The New Deal advocated for women’s rights, worked towards ending discrimination in the workplace, offered various jobs to African Americans, and employed millions through new relief programs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), made it his duty to ensure that something was being done. This helped restore the public's confidence and showed that relief was possible. The New Deal helped serve American’s interest, specifically helping women, african american, and the unemployed and proved to them that something was being done to help them.
In 1932, after Franklin Delano Roosevelt accepted the Democratic nomination for presidency, running against Republican president, Herbert Hoover, he promised a “New Deal” to the American people. This New Deal’s sole purpose was to deal with the economic hardships caused by the Great Depression, as well as to help and improve the lives of the millions of Americans who had been affected. Roosevelt was swept into office in a landslide. In his inaugural address, Roosevelt brought a sense of hope to a vast majority of dispirited Americans, assuring them that they had “nothing to fear, but fear itself.” On March 5, 1933, just one day after his inauguration, Roosevelt began to implement his New Deal, beginning his focus on the failing banking
Interphase and mitotic are two difference periods on the cell cycle, each period has their difference importance.
According to Poverty & Prejudice: Media and Race, co-authored by Yurii Horton, Raagen Price, and Eric Brown, the media sets the tone for the morals, values and images of our culture. Many whites in American society, some of whom have never encoun...
In addition, due to negative feelings about Asian Americans prevalent in American culture, Hollywood’s attempt to expand its target audiences is constrained, and despite the increasing market values of Asian Americans, Hollywood is possibly unwilling to portray successful Asian characters for fear of provoking its mainstream audiences who hold prejudice against Asians. There is a dominant white preference over the effects certain stereotypes may have on Asians and Asian Americans (Park, 2005).
Although we have taken monumental strides in the past fifty years towards racial equality and diversity, it is still commonly argued that popular culture lacks some sort of racial representation. In the United States, the people who live here are vastly diverse when it comes to race and culture, yet in the media people of color get marginalized and stereotyped everyday in film, music, and etc.
The stock market crash of October 1929 brought the economic prosperity of the 1920s to an abrupt halt. For the next ten years, the United States was thrown into a deep economic depression. By 1933, the unemployment rate had soared to 25%, up from 3% in 1929. Industrial production declined by approximately 50%, and international trade plunged 30%. This period in history is known as The Great Depression. The Great Depression plunged the American people into an economic crisis unlike anyone had ever experienced in history. Millions of hardworking individuals fell into poverty. Many lost their homes and lived on the street. Many more suffered from mass starvation. Overall, people lost their sense of pride and national spirit for America. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1933, when the economy was in a time of complete failure. Right away, Roosevelt took to not only helping the economy but also reviving the American morale after this tough era. Roosevelt implemented a series of executive actions, creating programs and new Federal agencies to help revive the economy. Together this was called The New Deal. One of the agencies that was created was called The Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA was created in order to put millions of unemployed Americans to work through governmental projects. Over a period of 8 years, the WPA spent over 3.3 billion dollars on public projects, some of which are still used today. Simultaneously as the United States struggled valiantly to climb out of the Great Depression, the threat of another crisis, a World War, loomed over the US. In June of 1939, the United States army only had 185,000 men enlisted. The need for a stronger, m...
The cell cycle is the synchronous process by which existing cells give rise to new cells. This process can be broadly divided into two stages: interphase and mitosis. During interphase, cells increase in size, replicate their chromosomes to form sister chromatids, and increase their rates of protein synthesis. During mitosis, sister chromatids are separated and transported to opposite cell poles, followed by cell division (cytokinesis). Recent investigations have revealed much information about the morphological changes that occur in mitotic cells. These morphological changes occur in a precise order and include, in chronological order, condensation of chromosomes, changes in microtubule assembly patterns, nuclear envelope breakdown, chromosome alignment at the center of the cell, chromosome separation to opposite cell poles, and nuclear envelope reassembly prior to cytokinesis. Similar morphological changes have been observed during meiosis, indicating that the processes driving DNA distribution in somatic cells and gametes is similar (Baserga, 1968).
The New Deal, established by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, was a series of programs put into affect to fix the Great Depression that the United States was currently in. Beginning with the crash of the stock market on October 29, 1929, America was plunged into its most severe economic downturn yet. Roosevelt developed this plan to save the country. At this time the people of America were in a huge economic unrest. Most in America were homeless or unemployed. Roosevelt created his programs to help these exact people from poverty. He assured the people of America that his programs would help the crumbling economy, mass unemployment, and low wages. This chain of programs raised both nationalism and national character throughout America for a few years. The author of this excerpt had a very negative view of FDR’s work and critiqued every program within the New Deal. Roosevelt’s programs have many long-term consequences, some of which are still in effect today. Most of the programs still in action were modified in the 1960’s, these are the present day welfare programs that most people are accustomed to. While the New Deal was not entirely successful, Franklin D. Roosevelt did the best he could with the time and circumstances given.
At the end of the NPR article they discuss the problem between keeping television shows diverse, “without amplifying the problems of stereotyping and prejudice” (Feld). Television shows feel that in order to a successful show with diversity, the people need to be cast-typed or take on every stereotype that is associated with that particular race or gender. The Erigha article discusses how, “many of actors were type-casted, or put in racialized roles, that fit their ethnicity” and some of these people do not necessarily fit that type, “they used Asian Actors as an example, many of the actors that were born in America, were asked to speak in a Chinese accent.”
With that, Walmart are able to provides products that are beneficial to the environment and customers can be aware that how much impact the products they bought can do to the environment. Walmart buy products from more than 60,000 supplies from 70 countries. With the Sustainability Index, Walmart can make sure that the products bought from the suppliers do not harm the environment. When Walmart are able to reduce the waste products from the organization, they can cut the cost and provides lower prices for customers. By reducing the waste of the products, Walmart can save millions
The White Savior Complex is a damaging subconscious underlay of the Hollywood system, and more broadly all of western society. It is used to further separate the notions of “us” and “other” by creating a firm separation fueled by self-righteousness, and a sense of entitlement. Hollywood attempts to address race relations, but fails because of this trope. Kingsle, from the article “Does My Hero Look White In This?” described that both racism and colonialism are acknowledged, but not without reassuring that not only were white people against the system of racist power dynamics, but also were actively fighting against it in leadership roles (2013).